There are primarily two approaches for making garment patterns: (1) traditional garment pattern design, and (2) computer-aided-design (CAD) garment pattern design.
In traditional garment pattern design, flat patterning and draping are two main methods for pattern making. The traditional garment pattern design method is time consuming and inconsistent because of the human manual operations by different people with different levels of skill. Thus, the fitting of garment cannot be ensured.
There are a number of prior arts describing how to use the traditional garment pattern design method to develop two-dimensional (2D) patterns or three-dimensional (3D) patterns of garments, and also how to improve the fitting of these garment patterns. These disclosures, however, cover mostly woven type garments.
The China Patent for Invention Application Publication No. CN1227082A discloses a method for creating knitted garments by forming an entirely deployed pattern having a deployed shape, which can be obtained by flattening an entire predetermined 3D design of a garment to be knitted. The disclosed method includes dividing the entirely deployed pattern into a plurality of divided area to form pattern pieces. Then, the pattern pieces are used to create knitted pieces, which conform to each shape of the pattern pieces. Lastly, the predetermined design of the garment is made by joining the knitted pieces to each other based on an arrangement of the divided area. This process is lengthy, complicated, and prone to human errors.
In the CAD garment pattern design, most existing methods comprise: (1) operating on 2D pattern (2D-to-2D approach), (2) flattening 3D surface to 2D pattern (3D-to-2D approach), (3) creating 2D cut-and-sewn garment from 3D data cloud (3D-to-2D approach with equipment), (4) designing 2D garment with the help of 3D simulation mannequin and garment (2D-to-3D approach), (5) creating 3D garment from 3D human model or human body data (3D-to-3D approach), (6) performing CAD garment pattern simulation, which includes the simulation of the mannequin on computer, simulation the garment on computer, and simulation the fitting of a virtual mannequin on computer.